Interesting morning with ed psych

Brilliant that you have this assessment for his future school so they can hopefully fine tune his support.

Well done Simba and well done Mum.

It was a full cognitive assessment to support his transition to secondary school. He did a whole range of little tests, the front of the book said it covered age 8 -16.

Memory tests - repeating lists of numbers, repeating the list backwards, reordering the lists, lists with numbers and letters.
Recreating patterns using blocks, looking at groups of pictures and identifying the connections, identifying sequences, some verbal reasoning and comprehension, some were timed.

We did have a chat before about behaviours but that wasn't the main focus, we've had a OT assessment around some of the other issues and a recent ASD diagnosis.

Sounds very useful.

When do you get the feedback?

Well done to Simba - it's great when we see our kids focus and relax and engage with something effectively. So glad you have something fresh to feel proud about.

Daffin - Ed Psychs do loads of tests and they are licensed to do much more than an SpLD teacher so don't get fobbed off by anyone saying we've done an SpLD assessment so don't need an EP. The main test is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, which has different domains - verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing speed. The spread can be vast so just looking at an overall IQ score can be very unhelpful. Our boys both score quite highly on verbal comp and perceptual reasoning but much lower on working memory and processing speed for example. They should also do attainment tests WRAT4, TOWRE2, GORT5, DASH and CTOPP2 - these look at things like reading speed, phonics, reading comp, spelling, mathematical reasoning, mental maths, written maths and writing speed. I think all this needs to be assessed in the context of what is known about behaviour, sensory processing etc as these will impact there recommendations. The child needs to be able to engage with the prescribed intervention and if they are sensory seeking for example the way they might do this will be very different. We made sure our EP focused strongly on practical personalised suggestions for interventions. 

The tests my boys did are also used for 5 year olds there results are reported as percentiles in relation to peers age wise.

The only thing I would say about doing an EP report for a young child is that it would be good to do it again at about age 8 as things like dyslexia only become clear at that age. However there is lots to be said for getting insight as early as possible in terms of devising strategies.